All image and undo data which doesn’t fit into the tile cache will be written to a swap file. This file should be located on a local filesystem with enough free space (several hundred MB). On a Unix system, you may want to use the system-wide-temp-dir (“/tmp” or “/var/tmp”).

I then got a chance to choose what folder to do this to, what folder should I choose as I have tried opening this program several times and it always freezes

do you have several partitions on your HDD?? then make a folder named Gimp Swap on a partition with plenty of free space. when gimp asks you what folder to use point it to the folder you just created. i never used gimp but i think that's how you should do it.

telvannia uses gimp. give him a pm to be sure.

“In the beginning God said, the four-dimensional divergence of an antisymmetric, second rank tensor equals zero, and there was light, and it was good. And on the seventh day he rested.”- Michio Kaku

I've promoted this thread to Sticky status to try and encourage people to use the thread properly. There's been an increase in off-topic discussion in map development threads lately, discussion that is perhaps more appropriate for this thread.

So please, if you have questions on how best to make a river, some mountains, a forest or anything else for that matter, ask for some advice here. Any other threads or posts of this nature will start to be merged here from now on.

Should this thread grow in popularity and prove to be a useful tool, we may add a new sub-forum for such discussion in the future.

misterman10 wrote:I was wondering, how do you crop an image on inkscape

I have worked on Inkscape for my maps and have yet to find a way to easily crop an image on Inkscape. What I did was crop the image manually in paint (photoshop would be better, but I did not have it at the time), and imported (Ctrl+I) it back into Inkscape as a raster graphic.

QUESTION: I have switched to Adobe Illustrator. It's much better then Inkscape, but there were a few features in Inkscape that I assume is also in Illustrator but I cannot find them. Once I create, for example a rectangle, and i want to adjust its size to the exact pixel, how would i do that? Also, if i want to specify, again to the exact pixel, where the rectangle should be positioned, how would i do that?

I'm not sure what version of Illustrator you're using Bad Speler, but in the CS3 trial I have you can adjust both those things in the boxes that show up in the top toolbar when the rectangle is selected.

thanks, I'm not sure how I missed that. Anyways, one more question. How can i apply my own textures to my artwork in Illustrator?

(edit) One more question, this time about XML. I want to have a certain territory in an upcoming map to receive a negative 1 territory bonus. What would happen if the amount of armies were down to 1? Also, what would happen if there was a neutral army on that territory?

Here is a PSD file that shows one way to make mountains. It is basically a layered approach. Each layer is made by applying and layering small amounts of color to a layer (pick a textured brush with 25%-40% opacity and flow) then the layer has a bevel and texture applied to it via Blending options.

You can open the PSD file and turn off the layer styles. That will show you what each layer looks like and how to better make the mountains.

ok..so i want to try making a map.
And I am sorry to say that many of the programs are not straight forward.

I tried something with Adobe Photoshop...and got lost when at a painted field I get the next error "could not use xx(pencil or stamp or so) because the content of the layer is not directly editable" on a new second layer.
But the brush and lasso worked. I click on the eye and the lock of the layers on the righthandside. But after many clicks on/off also that got blocked.
And no help from the help file. What the f?:evil:

Then spent many hours on Inkscape (layers work fine) but there I miss the possibility to give a free airbrush stroke on areas (How do I get irregular sea or field effects on otherwise egalitarean coloured sea/landmasses ?).
And how do I import a different textfont than what is standard available(and where are they freely available ) ?

And then GIMP. Downloaded the stuff. But it won't install on WinXP (or is it a Linux program?).

(edit: that was from a TU Twente mirror with different GIMP versions and per version different pieces to be assembled.. I now found a single installation file somewhere else).